


I've got a rootless heart, baby

by Serie11



Series: Femslash February 2018 [7]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Adults dealing with relationships like adults, F/F, Post-Canon, Spoilers, Wanderlust, Worldbuilding, aloy has a rootless heart, but petra loves her anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 00:16:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13601496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: “Sawtooth spotted!”Aloy looked up just in time to see the sawtooth clear the hills in front of them. Aloy leaned over the battlements – she hadn’t seen a sawtooth inyears.





	I've got a rootless heart, baby

 

Free Heap was looking good.

Aloy wandered through the front gates, greeted by several Oseram. She cheerily waved back to them.

“Have you got the Thunderjaw lens I needed?” Kell yelled from across the courtyard, smoke rising from his forge.

“Don’t you know it,” Aloy said, fishing the piece out of her bag. “Are you going to tell me what it’s for? These pieces aren’t easy to come by, you know.”

Kell waved her off. “All in good time, Aloy! You’ll like it, I promise. Now why don’t you go and see our fiery leader? She’s been spitting and blustering ever since you left.”

“Aw, does she miss me?”

“I sure as hell do.”

Aloy turned to see Petra leaning against a wall. Grinning, she jogged over to the other woman and gave her a quick kiss. “That’s adorable, Petra.”

“Petra’s got a crush!” Kell yelled.

“Our dear leader’s gonna run off on us!”

“Someone rinse out my eyes with oil, I can’t stand this cuteness.”

“Grab water buckets, Petra’s cheeks are gonna set something ablaze!”

“I’ll set you ablaze,” Petra growled good naturedly. She flung an arm over Aloy’s shoulders. “It’s good to see you. Don’t mind them, we’ve just had a slow month.”

“What, no terrifying, world ending attacks?” Aloy asked, pretending to be shocked.

“Yeah, crazy, right?” Petra looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “It’s probably because you were being a trouble magnet somewhere else.”

Aloy laughed. “You’re not wrong.”

Petra rolled her eyes. Aloy grinned at her.

They’d gotten to know each other over the years, as Aloy spent a lot of time at the GAIA Prime site. Free Heap was the closest large town, and was the place where Aloy could find most of the supplies she needed if she had to come down to find extra parts for the reconstruction. Petra had even made her a few custom parts that Aloy had measured out in complete detail. She’d been very grateful for all of Petra’s help, and also grateful for the human company. It got lonely up on the mountain with only herself for company. Coming down to Free Heap felt like a vacation.

Especially once she got to know all of the disparate personalities that made up the Oseram settlement. She’d never been to the Claim, and from Petra’s stories, it was very different to how things were run here, but Aloy liked to pretend, sometimes. That all Oseram were this good and kind and helpful – it made her feel better about the state of the world and her place in it.

With GAIA Prime up and running five years after Aloy had defeated HADES, there was little reason to actually physically go to the site anymore, not when Aloy could call up GAIA’s interface from her focus. GAIA had made her a new and improved one that worked with ‘satellite technology’ which Aloy was still trying to wrap her head around. Apparently GAIA’s repair efforts had extended past the planet – GAIA had told Aloy about her special machines that travelled to space and brought down space junk, as well as repairing satellites. Aloy had just been glad that GAIA was thinking about this so that she didn’t have to.

So Aloy didn’t necessarily need to come here, but since she was pretty in love with Petra, she made up excuses. GAIA humoured her – Aloy would say, oh I should come and visit you, and GAIA would chuckle and ask if it was really her that Aloy wanted to visit.

So her life was busy, but with GAIA’s resurrection, the machines were mostly tame again. Aloy had brought the thunderjaw lens from cauldron zeta, where GAIA had one made especially because she asked. There was another two in her pack, but Aloy was saving them until she found someone who really needed them.

Petra updated her on the projects that they had been working on – with HEPHAESTUS back under GAIA’s control (mostly willingly, although Aloy still sometimes had her doubts) GAIA had started to roll back machine production to lessen human interference. Machines ran when confronted now, which made the roads safer in some ways, but more dangerous in others. Aloy had been clearing out bandit camps for the last few months, and new ones just kept popping back up almost immediately.

With less metal to work with, some Oseram were turning their attention to other things. Aloy marvelled at the small woodworking workshop that had been set up on one side of the town, as far away from the forges as possible.

“They don’t want anything to catch fire,” Petra said. Aloy turned a bowl over in her hands. It had been carved out of a knot of tree wood, and the whorls through the wood made the bowl look amazing.

“That’s fair,” Aloy said, putting the bowl down. “I love how you’re adapting to everything.”

Petra shrugged. “Well, we have extra knowledge from you. I’ll bet you that all the other Oseram are operating just the same as always, bringing in metal and thinking themselves silly over how to catch machines now that they’re intent on running away from all humans.”

“GAIA is still reporting a loss of machines at around fifteen percent,” Aloy mused. “But it used to be around forty percent, so that’s a big improvement. We’ve been thinking of ways to get it down even further.”

Petra nodded. They left the woodworking shop, and Petra led them to the battlements. Aloy looked out over the desert. The sky now lacked stormbirds, and she could only see one herd of broadheads, far to the north.

The world was becoming a very different place.

Petra threw her arm around Aloy. “How long are you staying this time?”

“Until GAIA calls, or until I hear word of another bandit camp,” Aloy said.

“Or until you feel the need to wander once more,” Petra said.

Aloy ducked her head. Leaning into Petra, she could smell her strong metal and leather scent – it grounded her. _Petra_ grounded her. Aloy was prone to wandering, just like Petra had pegged all those years ago. Aloy had a rootless heart, but sometimes Petra made her feel like staying in one place could almost be okay.

“I know that your heart truly belongs to the wilderness,” Petra sighed. “But I couldn’t give up Free Heap for you, either.”

“Just because we’re not always together, doesn’t mean that we don’t mean anything to each other,” Aloy pointed out. Some of the married nobles that she’d seen at the sun court spent every day together, and _hated_ each other. Sometimes remembering that made Aloy feel like maybe this restless longing for Petra when she was out on the road was an emotion that she was okay with feeling.

Petra chuckled. “Fire and spit girl, you always cut to the heart of things. You’re right. We’re adults enough to deal with missing each other.”

“Doesn’t that mean we have to appreciate the time we have together?” Aloy asked coyly, tilting her head so that she could look at Petra. The older woman grinned.

“You’ve always got the best ideas, Aloy.”

Aloy leaned over and kissed her, feeling Petra’s lips brush against her own. Sighing, she cupped her jaw. Kissing Petra always made her feel like she really was coming home.

“Sawtooth spotted!”

Aloy pulled away just in time to see the sawtooth clear the hills in front of them. Aloy leaned over the battlements – she hadn’t seen a sawtooth in _years_.

“Ready the canons!” Petra shouted.

“Wait!” Aloy yelled. “There’s something I want to try.”

“Hold fire until I give the order!” Petra continued yelling. She stared Aloy in the eye. “Be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” Aloy said cheekily, then leapt over the battlements to the ground below. She rolled at the bottom, not letting her momentum break so suddenly and snap an ankle. The single sawtooth was running towards the settlement, and Aloy grabbed her bow, loading up some shock arrows.

The arrows bit deep into the sawtooth’s side, but Aloy needed another few before it fell, stunned. She sprinted over to the sawtooth and grabbed her spear, checking to see that the override that she’d tied to the end was on and fully functioning.

She found an access port and plugged her spear in, head swivelling and eyes sharp to make sure that there were no other machines coming. But it looked like this was a solo charge – the sawtooth was alone. Gritting her teeth, Aloy finished the override and then stood up.

The sawtooth grumbled to itself, its eyes a soft blue instead of a hard red. Aloy touched her focus. “GAIA? Why is there a sawtooth out here?”

“ _Unknown,_ ” GAIA’s voice echoed in her ear. “ _I can recall it if you’d like._ ”

Aloy looked back at Free Heap. “Give me a second.”

She led the sawtooth back towards the town. GAIA had improved her overrides immensely, giving her the master codes for all machines as well as allowing her to give simple directives to the machines that she did override. Aloy rarely used it anymore, so it was good to see that it still worked.

“All sorted?” Petra called out from the battlements.

“Yeah!” Aloy shouted back. She heard Petra begin to tell everyone to stand down, and smiled as the Oseram started complaining about being called up for no reason. They liked their work, but sometimes Aloy thought that they liked blasting things apart more than they liked building them.

Petra met her by the front gate. The older woman stared at the sawtooth that was hanging just behind Aloy’s shoulder. “Well, what are you going to do with that?”

“Um,” Aloy said, because she hadn’t really thought this far ahead. Judging by Petra’s raised eyebrow, she had just realised that too.

“We’re not supposed to destroy the machines if we can anymore,” Aloy said. “So…”

“What, it can just live here now?”

“It’s completely tame,” Aloy defended, frowning at Petra’s disbelieving tone. “And I can’t really take it with me. Not very stealthy, to have a giant sawtooth following your every move.” She hesitated, pretending to think. “I guess I could ask GAIA to recall it…”

“No,” Petra said. “He can be our mascot. I’ll hold a competition to name it. It can be a portable beer moving machine.”

Aloy laughed. “Oh, so you want to keep it just so it can lug your beer around?”

“I bet I could rig a harness that would mean that it never dropped the beer,” Petra said, glaring back at some of the Oseram. “Let me tell you this: never ask a bunch of drunk Oseram to get another cask of beer.”

“You’re going to have to tell me that story now,” Aloy teased. Petra shook her head.

“Well, I suppose I can’t ever let them live it down. How about tonight, around the campfire. I’m sure that everyone will be excited that you’re back, and they’ll all be willing to bust out their best tales. But don’t worry, my one will blow them all away, as well as embarrassing them.” Petra winked at her. “Two for the price of one, hey?”

Aloy smiled. “That sounds like a good plan to me.”

“Good,” Petra said, leaning forward to give her a kiss. “Now, let’s bring this big boy inside and get the argument started as to what we should call it.”

Petra led the way, and Aloy covered her mouth to hide her snigger. Behind her, the sawtooth let out a grumble that could almost be taken for a question. Aloy patted its head.

“Don’t worry, Petra will take care of you,” she murmured to it. After all, this might be the last sawtooth – she couldn’t just let GAIA take it back and recycle it for parts. The sawtooth’s eyes gleamed, even in the bright midday sun. Aloy ran a hand through her hair, and then took a step into town.

Slowly, the sawtooth followed after her, its head tilting as it took in its new home.

**Author's Note:**

> Today's prompt was: animal acquisition. Sawtooths count as animals right...?


End file.
